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Feist v. Rural Telephone
Citation Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Tel. Servs. Co., 499 U.S. 340, 18 U.S.P.Q.2d (BNA) 1275 (1991) (full-text). Factual Background Rural Telephone Service was the sole provider of telephone service in its service area. As a telephone company operating in Kansas, it was required by the State of Kansas to collect the telephone] listing information and publish it in an annual directory. The white pages of Rural Telephone Service's directory consisted of a simple alphabetical list of the names of Rural's subscribers, their towns, and their telephone numbers. Feist Publications, a publishing company making area-wide telephone directories, paid for the rights to use listings from telephone companies in 11 different service areas near Rural's service area. Rural Telephone Service would not allow Feist to pay to use its listings. Because Rural would not allow Feist to license its listings, Feist used them without consent. Feist removed several thousand geographically irrelevant listings, then verified and attempted to obtain additional information on the 4,935 remaining listings for use in its directory. Most of Rural's listings did not contain street addresses. Ultimately, most of Feist's listings included the individuals' names, street addresses, towns, and telephone numbers. However, 1,309 of the 46,878 listings in Feist's directory were used directly from Rural Telephone Service's white pages. Rural sued Feist for copyright infringement. U.S. Supreme Court Proceedings The Supreme Court found that the telephone book as a whole was copyrightable but that the compilation of listings and the individual listings were not copyrightable. While the facts underlying a compilation cannot be protected by copyright, the author can claim protection of the manner in which the facts are presented. To qualify for copyright protection a work must be original to the author. To be original a work must (1) be independently created by the author and (2) possess at least some minimal degree of creativity. Compilations of facts can be copyrightable if they possess the requisite originality: "The compilation author typically chooses which facts to include, in what order to place them, and how to arrange the collected data so that they may be used effectively by readers."Id. at 370. How much creativity is "at least some minimal degree of creativity?" The Court does not provide a clear positive test other than to say that the work must contain "some creative spark, no matter how crude, humble or obvious it might be,"Id. at 369, citing M. Nimmer & D. Nimmer, Copyright 1.08C1. the work does not need to be novel, but cannot be copied, Id. at 369, citing Sheldon v. Metro-Goldwyn Pictures Corp. 81 F.2d 49, 54, 28 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 330 (2d Cir. 1936)(full-text). and the work must contain "the fruits of intellectual labor."Id. at 369, citing The Trade-Mark Cases, 100 U.S. 82 (1884)(full-text). Rather, the Court defined the minimal "creativity" requirement more in the negative as to what is not sufficient: "works in which the creative spark is utterly lacking or so trivial as to be virtually nonexistent,"Id. at 377 citing Bleistein v. Donaldson Lithographing Co., 188 U.S. 239, 251 (1903)(full-text) (referring to "the narrowest and most obvious limits"). works which are "entirely typical," "garden-variety," "devoid of even the slightest trace of creativity,"Id. at 380. "could not be more obvious," and "firmly rooted in tradition and so commonplace that it has come to be expected as a matter of course....not only unoriginal, it is practically inevitable."Id. at 380. Finally, it should be noted that when a compilation of public domain information is protected, the copyright is relatively "thin" and limited to the selection and arrangement of such information. The Court explained that: Overall, the Court made clear that copyright rewards originality, not effort. The primary objective of copyright is not to reward the labor of authors, but "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts."Id. at 371, citing Art. I, 8, cl 8.; accord Twentieth Century Music Corp. v. Aiken, 422 U.S. 151, 156 (1975)(full-text). References See also * Copyright protection of databases * Originality Category:Copyright Category:Case Category:Case-U.S.-Federal Category:Case-U.S.-Copyright